Month: October 2014

I had another session steam printing paper with plant material and decided to make a book from them. First I followed a suggestion by the author of the website dipandstain.blogspot to dip my sheets in a bath of washing soda – one cup hot water in which to disolve one teaspoon of soda, plus one cup of cold water. This brightens the colour a little. When they were dry I determined the order, glued each pair of pages together using a narrow piece of thin khadi paper along the spines and PVA glue. In my second dyeing session I had folded a couple of A4 sheets rather than tear them to fit in my steamer, so these obviously needed no further treatment. I used each pair as a separate signature and stitched them to form the book. I glued a strip of abaca paper along the spines and then glued on the cover. This had been pounded with flowers – dahlias, tagetes, using the stems as well from the miniature ones, cosmos. (You use a soft mallet, protecting the surface with another piece of paper over your work). I used the same method on some of the pages where I felt it enhanced the page. I am not sure how long the colour will last, but the effect is lovely. Finally I added a coat of acrylic wax to give some protection.View the Post

This is really quite addictive! I’ve been playing around with it for the last week or so, trying out various ideas. This is a fairly large landscape which I have framed with black mount board in a black frame.View the Post